


Trapped in the Dark

by TiBun



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anidala wasn't a thing, Canon Divergence - Revenge of the Sith, Depression, Everything Hurts, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Hurts So Good, It Gets Worse, Not A Fix-It, One Shot, Past Relationship can be Romantic or Platonic, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:49:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13171089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TiBun/pseuds/TiBun
Summary: Obi-Wan believed he had killed Anakin on Mustafar until he came face-to-face with Vader for the first time.





	Trapped in the Dark

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Tumblr Post](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/347133) by keblava. 



> Disclaimer: I do not own any recognizable characters, I simply explore the possibilities

That day haunted him like a shadow in the dark. Always there in the corner of his consciousness, constantly reminding him of what he'd done, but he was unable to face it directly. The reminder was crippling at times, and some days he couldn't even pull himself out of bed as he lay in his darkened hut hidden away in the deserts of Tatooine. Alone without a single friend in the galaxy knowing where he was, if he was even alive. Alone with only memories of what had once been, and how it had all ended.

The Clone Wars had been rough. He'd been a man of peace, forced to act as a general. Flashbacks to the war were common, and he knew they would never leave him. The violence he saw, the lives lost on both sides, the chaos… He wished he could have fought the war with words, negotiated peace between the Separatists and the Republic planets. But that was out of his hands. It hadn't been his call on how the war was to be resolved, and the Jedi had lost their way quickly as the Sith secretly grew in power.

But the war itself wasn't quite enough to cripple him for long stretches of time. But what the war lead him to do.

Oh how blind he had been, to not see how the darkness had been attaching itself to his former padawan. His closest friend and partner. His attachment to Anakin Skywalker had hindered his view of the beautiful young man that shown in the Force like the brightest stars.

They had been able to see the end of the war, they had defeated key leaders of the Separatists, and just had a few loose ends to wrap up when everything had gone wrong. He'd been taking care of one of those loose ends himself when suddenly his own men, the men he'd lead and fought with for years, whom he owed his life to, and they to him, had suddenly turned and fired on him, nearly killing him, and he barely escaped with his life.

It was a painful realization as he felt the lights of far too many Jedi being snuffed out. Every General Jedi falling under the blasters of the men they so trusted.

And then he arrived back at Coruscant and found only one Jedi Master alive. Every other life, even the younglings, had been killed by both blaster and lightsaber. Murdered.

Grandmaster of the Order, Yoda, had been found sitting in a mourning meditation in the center of the council chambers, a tear in his eye for all who had been lost. One of the smallest youngling's body's cradled carefully in his lap.

As he approached the old troll, his heart clenched painfully in his chest as the Force echoed what had happened in that room, as voices from the past met his ears.

 _"Master Skywalker, there's too many of them, what should we do?"_ the voice of a youngling asked before the sound of a lightsaber activating echoed through the Force and dread and betrayal filled the Force. It was all too clear as to who had committed this crime, and it also brought Obi-Wan to tears as he fell to his knees next to one of the younglings.

It couldn't be….

But it was. Anakin had betrayed the order.

 _"Go confront Skywalker, you must."_ Yoda had said, _"Defeat him you must.”_

Those words haunted him, and he hated the troll for them. He had known then that he would never be able to face Anakin. He loved the young man far too much, and to do so would destroy him, but Yoda had insisted, and reluctantly, he had gone.

He had made the biggest mistake of his life by following Yoda's orders that day as he found himself on Mustafar, his eyes taking in how Anakin's figure stood proud surrounded by the bodies of all the remaining Separatist leaders and their droid body guards.

Oh how he wished he had responded in a well-thought out manner rather than let his emotions get the better of him. Obi-Wan Kenobi, master negotiator, had failed to use words to fight the battle. Just as when he'd lost his master, Qui-Gon, he acted only with emotion, brushing up against the darkness, himself, as his and Anakin's blue blades clashed against each other in that room of death.

Oh he had tried to talk, but what good were words of hurt when his usual calm had been lost? Their battle stretched on and on, moving them from inside the fortress to the river of lava below, whisking them far from their staring point.

And then he had been standing on the black dirt banks of the river of fire, looking down at Anakin as he proclaimed the high ground. He'd been foolish to think that this darker Anakin would have given in. No, he had acted recklessly in attempt to steal the high ground, and in that moment Obi-Wan had murdered them both. His lightsaber moving in instinct to stop him. An arm and both legs gone as Anakin fell and slid down the banks and into the fire.

Obi-Wan felt himself die that very moment. A walking husk as words of emotion spilled from his lips and he took Anakin's lightsaber and turned his back on the man he loved more than anything.

He could still hear Anakin's screams as his body burned.

He could hear Anakin's declaration of hate.

He could still feel the way the ground shifted under his heavy feet as he moved towards his ship and ran away.

Why had he chosen Tatooine? He didn't know. Maybe because it had been where his journey through life with Anakin had started. The brave little slave boy who had helped win his own freedom… He was long gone, and Obi-Wan felt so much like he'd become a slave to the past. Maybe it was fitting, in that way, that what was left of him die on that dust-covered rock. And it had been what he planned on doing.

On the days he was able to get out of bed, he'd catch up on the chores that needed the most attention, and then head to the nearest cantina for a stiff drink or two to try and forget his pain. There he heard tell of stories, of a great black cyborg named Lord Vader and his dark deeds for the Empire that had sprung up from the ashes of war. The Separatists and Republic had both lost, and the light in the galaxy had been snuffed out.

He didn't have the heart in him anymor to care. Ignoring the dark empire and living in the past, revisiting that day on Mustafar and the what ifs.

_What if there had been light left in him? What if I could have saved him yet? What if I had been able to do things differently…would there have been a way to bring him back?_

He haunted himself with those never-ending what ifs.

And then the day had come. A droid he knew all too well. _Anakin's_ old droid R2-D2 had come rolling into his dimly lit hut, beeping and wiggling at him before projecting a message. The face of an old friend, Bail Organa, reaching out to him.

_"I hope the rumors whispered amongst the resistance is true and this message finds you well, my old friend. The Galaxy needs you, the resistance needs you. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope."_

Obi-Wan had broken down, crying for days after watching the message. How had he been found? How could they want his help? He had failed. He was nothing but an old, broken man waiting for the dessert to finally kill him.

But somehow, the little astro droid had managed to pull him out of his stupor and onto a smuggler's ship, stripping him of his isolation.

However, Alderaan was gone, nothing left when they reached the coordinates, but a huge moon-like battle station.

He stood, shock still and with wide eyes as he stood on that station, the smuggler off looking for the man who'd pay him, and he, alone again, feeling the approach of an all too familiar presence.

Anakin.

He wasn't dead. He hadn't died. He'd only suffered.

A great cyborg marched towards him, towering over him in a terrifying mask, his breathing amplified by life support. The sound was haunting. And Obi-Wan knew. He _knew_ this was Anakin. This monster the galaxy called Vader. It was his Anakin—what was left of his Anakin after he failed to strike him down on Mustafar.

Oh Force.

Obi-Wan's knees grew weak as he realized with mixed emotions that he hadn't killed his closest friend. As he realized that their fight started all those years ago on Mustafar wasn't over. That he'd have to face him again.

No, he couldn't.

"I’ve been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again, at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the master." The deep, mechanical voice sounded nothing like the sweet tone of Anakin Skywalker.

Obi-Wan swallowed around a large, painful lump in his throat, "O-Only a master of evil, Anakin…"

"Your powers are weak, old man. You should not have come." Vader mocked him, drawing his blood red lightsaber and activating it.

Obi-Wan had three on his hip. His own, Anakin's, and Qui-Gon's. But he reached for none of them. Instead, he let himself fall to his knees with a sob, head bent as he couldn't bring himself to look up at that mask hiding the face of his greatest regret.

"I loved you, Anakin…I'm sorry…"

He felt shock and rage in the Force before he caught a flash of red out the corner of his eye, and then—

Vader stood over the body of his once master and friend. It was over. After so long of obsessive searching for Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was all over, and it felt—wrong. The moment his saber cut through Obi-Wan's neck, he felt something snap deep inside him. A bond that had always been there, left forgotten. He felt so—incomplete. And with it missing, all the memories attached to it came flooding back.

 _"I loved you, Anakin."_ Obi-Wan's words echoed through his mind.

Why? Why had he been so intent on killing this man? He couldn't remember anymore.

He bent down and scooped up Obi-Wan's body into his arms. The man was far too light—or maybe it was his cybernetic arms. But he did feel far too thin, like a man wasting away.

Hatred and anger flooded him. But no longer directed at Obi-Wan. No, it was at himself. For what he'd become, what he'd done to the only man who had truly loved and cared for him.

He felt himself sink deeper into the darkness, and he welcomed its cold embrace.

* * *

End

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!


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